"Antivirus software on your personal computer could become a thing of the past thanks to a new "cloud computing" approach to malicious software detection developed at the University of Michigan. The researchers' new approach, called CloudAV, moves antivirus functionality into the "network cloud" and off personal computers. CloudAV analyzes suspicious files using multiple antivirus and behavioral detection programs simultaneously. Traditional antivirus software that resides on a personal computer checks documents and programs as they are accessed. Because of performance constraints and program incompatibilities, only one antivirus detector is typically used at a time. The researchers see promising opportunities in applying CloudAV to cell phones and other mobile devices that aren't robust enough to carry powerful antivirus software."

This whole "cloud computing" thing is becoming incredibly ridiculous. Does everything have to become a buzzword nowadays?

Yeah.. It is called marketing...

Web 2.0, UMPC/netbooks, now this Cloud Computing, what the hell's next?!?

Even more marketing and buzzwords for sure. At least these ones will be fashionable: touchscreens, 3D displays/goggles & 3D games, Web 3.0 (what ever that may mean??), marketing networked home multimedia centres (instead of old PCs, TVs etc.)...

So, in order to check my files, they have to be uploaded to some server on the web? So, it's not very realistic to scan my music and video libraries

Huh? Did you even glimpse the actual article? It doesn't talk about uploading and then scanning your offline music collection or anything like that (why would you need to check your offline music or videos for viruses is beyond my understanding anyway).

The article quite explicitly states that the technology is about checking incoming files when they are transmitted, say, to "cell phones and other mobile devices that aren't robust enough to carry powerful antivirus software". In such situations a solution like this could make sense. And also many ISPs already offer online antivirus services to their customers which is also not very far from this.

Also, among other things: "CloudAV also caches analysis results, speeding up the process compared with traditional antivirus software. This could be useful for workplaces, for example, where multiple employees might access the same document. The new approach also includes what the developers call "retrospective detection," which scans its file access history when a new threat is identified. This allows it to catch previously-missed infections earlier."

Not to mention the privacy implications...

That privacy worry might be true to some extent.

But actually - in my opinion, and if I may add - we shouldn't really need to use any antivirus software at all in normal network tasks. Normally a good firewall (and common sense) should be quite enough. In my opinion, the need for antivirus software exists mostly just because of poor basic security (and other design) in software and operating systems. It would be better to develop and use more secure software and operating systems from the start.

Aside from the mess that is Windows, does any other modern OS out there have a problem running multiple programs that scan the same files/memory at the same time?

You have to consider hardware requirements too, not only the software and operatings systems point of view. There's no end in sight for the growing popularity of small mobile phones, Internet tablets etc. and often they do not have powerful CPUs and lots of free RAM to run multiple programs in the background all the time.

Besides, it is only MS Windows that needs antivirus software, not so much any other operating system ever invented, at least so far. Therefore I also see that for the time being this article and the technology discussed might be most relevant and promising for mobile MS Windows based smart phones and such gadgets.

the technology discussed might be most relevant and promising for mobile MS Windows based smart phones and such gadgets.

And maybe also for some big companies and organization that do not have endless administration resources and that use Windows-based PCs. It could save a lot of admin worktime if antivirus protection could be centralized and network-based instead of each individual workstation (of maybe hundreds of them) needing its own antivirus software and the necessary admin work related to it.